Begin Thinking Like a Humanitarian

More than ever before. I understand that food is medicine. And through the food that you consume every day, you're either destroying your health, creating disease, in creating increasing inflammation, or through the food you eat, you're becoming healthier. Your nutrition also affects your moods. I'm going to repeat that again because it's so important. Your nutrition affects your moods and of course your nutrition is affecting your Healthset. It'll affect your skin. It'll affect your energy. ...

• 0:04Speaker 00

  Hi, it's Robin Sharma and welcome to Daily Mastery. This is my short form podcast where I'll walk you through the insights, methodologies, and tactics that I've shared with many of the world's most successful people as their mentor, including celebrity billionaires, NBA superstars, world-class artists, and global humanitarians. I hope you find great value in today's episode.

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  If you look up the term humanitarian in the dictionary, the word humanitarian will simply say a person who is dedicated to the welfare of humanity. And so I want you to start thinking like a humanitarian, because often when we use that word, we think of a Mother Teresa, we think of a Martin Luther King Jr., we think of a Nelson Mandela, we think of the great people who are working for nonprofits in the third world, helping people in need, serving the disadvantaged. Yes, those are the humanitarians, but we all have an opportunity every single day

• 1:14Speaker 00

  to be humanitarians exactly where you and I are planted. It's just about being a caring human being and being radically helpful to as many people as possible. Here is a meditation I do almost every morning, and I ask myself a simple question, and then I meditate on it. How may I most be of use to as many people as possible? How may I most be of use to as many people as possible? I don't know what tomorrow's going to bring, so today with that intention, with that focus on being helpful to as many people as possible, it becomes a decision matrix that frames my choices.

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  I don't waste as much time, I don't waste a lot of time anyway, but it's much more of a monomaniacal obsession to use every day I am blessed to live for whatever time I have left in helpfulness and service to as many people as possible. Because I think the ultimate errand and the greatest call on a human life is not doing things to stroke the ego. It's not accumulating toys to look good in society. I think if you want to play with the heavyweights on the planet, it's about turning down the voice of the ego and less about me and more about we. And if you want to play in the rare air of the greatest women and men who have ever graced the world, it really is about becoming a philanthropist.

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  And that could mean you give money. I love the term tithing, and the term tithing is an old term, and it comes from the wisdom traditions, where basically you would give 10% of your income to the disadvantaged. And I can't tell you how many billionaires, billionaires. I was talking to one gentleman, he's in the hospitality industry, he owns all these fabulous hotels, he is, you know, owns industries, and here's what he said to me when he and his wife and myself sat down and spent about two hours together. He said, you know, my financial empire transformed when I started giving money to charity.

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  I talked to another multi-billionaire who is a good friend, he made his fortune in the fitness industry, and he said to me, he said, you know what? Everything changed the year I started giving back. I love the giving pledge, where a lot of the financial titans on the planet have vowed to give away their entire fortunes before they die. One of my favorite books is The Billionaire Who Wasn't. It's the story of the gentleman who came up with the idea of duty-free shops, and he got to a place with that concept, you know, putting duty-free shops in airports across the world. And he got to a place where he literally said, we were just printing money.

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  The beautiful thing is silently and quietly, because philanthropy without anonymity is an ego pursuit. Please think about that. Philanthropy without anonymity is an ego pursuit. If you give money away and you tell the world all about it, well, is that to stroke your ego? I'm always very careful about the things that I do designed to seek applause, because that's not about leadership and service, that's about me filling a hole in insecurity within myself. And so if you give away money to have your name on a hospital wing, is that to fit in? Is that to be popular? Is it to be liked? Is it to feel good about yourself?

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  Because deep down inside, consciously or subconsciously, you don't really feel good about yourself. Or is it real giving? I mean, giving with an expectation of receiving is not giving, it's a trade. So be a real giver. And so what this person did, again, the book is The Billionaire Who Wasn't, quietly, without anyone knowing about it, anonymously, he started giving away his entire fortune to those who were in need. And last time I checked, he lived in a relatively small apartment with his wife in San Francisco,

• 5:37Speaker 00

  and his multi-billion dollar fortune was down to a few million dollars. Of course, that's still a fair amount of money, but when you have multi-billion's and you've given it all away, it's pretty impressive to me. So I want you to think about being not only a humanitarian, because the world needs more kindness, the world needs more people who are caring, the world needs you, you, to go out there and shine a light on people and to be helpful to people. And you might say, well, Robin, I'm a hard-driving entrepreneur, or I'm a CEO of a big company, or I'm building all these empires.

• 6:19Speaker 00

  Yes, do it with the intention of serving, of releasing your products in the world so that they create radical streams of value and helpfulness to all of your customers and to all of your suppliers and to all of your communities, so that ultimately what you are doing is being on a mission for the betterment of the world. And the by-product really will be a lot of money and a lot of acclaim and true applause, and you'll feel amazing about yourself. But you won't be doing it as an ego journey, you'll be doing it as a servant leader, and that's the game the great ones all play.

• 7:08Speaker 00

  Hi, it's Robin Sharma. I hope you've received strong value from today's episode. I encourage you to read my latest book, The Everyday Hero Manifesto, which is helping people from right across the world live soaring lives. If you'd like to go into further learning, you can head over to robinsharma.com, or you can download my free ebook, The World Changers Manifesto, and when you do that, you'll also get full access to the Everyday Hero Training Formula, which is a complete system to help you upgrade your productivity, positivity, impact, and the quality of your life. Have an outstanding day.